The digitalization of retail has given sellers a platform to reach out to a wider scope of audiences. Through the years, e-commerce has continuously been evolving, surfacing the introduction of new features to improve operations and keep things moving along in a much smoother and efficient manner. The same transition has taken place in terms of consumer behaviors. Given the affordance that e-commerce has provided customers in the ease of transacting, businesses have had to adjust their operations accordingly and work around this transition. Recognizing the development e-commerce has afforded not just their customers, but also retailers, businesses have adopted a number of strategies that center on creating the best possible experience for their target audiences.
Let us run you through some of the e-commerce trends that have shown growth and development for numerous businesses throughout the country, and around the world:
1. Personalized Shopping
Creating a personalized shopping experience for customers gives sellers the ability to get to know more about their customers and their preferences in order to tailor-fit product recommendations based on them. Especially with the current growth of digital transformation and advancement, a significant number of [then] purely physical and brick-and-mortar companies have slowly expanded their operations online.
In operationalizing a personalized shopping experience, sellers will rely primarily on personal data and cookies. They utilize their systems to keep track of customers’ click-based data or the products that customers have purchased or always go back to. They then align this with suggestions and recommendations for products that are in line with them, or that may be of particular interest to their customers.
Creating a personalized shopping experience will help filter out what the customer might actually want or need, and this saves them time from searching for these products or scrolling constantly through the products that are not of particular interest to them until they find what they want or need.
Personalized shopping not only comes in the form of presenting customers with tailored recommendations visible on the online selling platform itself, but also through other systemized personalizations (e.g. automation of clothing sizes to the customer’s clothing size by default every time they click on the item). This also aids businesses in creating and presenting customers with customized campaigns through email blasts. Overall, this strategy allows customers to feel that their shopping experience is valued and improves overall customer satisfaction.
2. Chatbots
Chatbots available to customers through their online selling platforms are used as a means of providing customers with instantaneous customer support. These chatbots are organized through the integration of existing frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) to address any concerns the customers may have. In essence, chatbots step in as equivalents for sales assistants in the organization’s physical and brick-and-mortar platforms.
In the case that a customer’s query or concern cannot be addressed by the automated responses provided by the chatbot, the system will automatically be able to re-connect them with actual sales assistants to address these and provide customers with more ease in going through the process of resolving their query or concern with minimal effort. The use of chatbots has been integrated in many systems and has been deemed to improve overall customer satisfaction, most especially for those who are unfamiliar with either navigation of the platform or their overall experience with the organization.
3. Short Informational Videos
Including short instructional and informational videos about your product or service takes you one step further in building an overall satisfactory experience for your customers. They serve great use in providing customers with not only an in-depth tutorial on how to use the product/service being offered, but also a visual demonstration of your product or service that will allow them to better understand its functions and features and aid their decision to avail of them.
Before moving forward with including video clips in your online retail platform, one important thing to consider is the attention span of your customers;most especially your target audience. Customers don’t want to spend what would feel like forever trying to figure out how to use your product or navigate the process of availing your services. In ensuring a pleasurable and easy experience for your customers, it is highly advised that you keep your instructional and informational content succinct and straightforward.
One other important factor to consider is—depending on the product or service—the emphasis placed on the presentation of the possible issues that your customers or target audiences face and the value proposition of your product or service in addressing these
issues.
4. Omnichannel Utilization
Omnichannels have become vital tools that businesses make it a point to invest in, in the effort of upscaling and centralizing their operations. With the widespread growth of the omnichannel environment and given the advantages that omnichannels have provided businesses in staying afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses have acknowledged the different benefits as well as the convenience omnichannels have provided in going about their operations and in bringing about overall customer satisfaction. In adopting an omnichannel strategy, businesses are given the ability to oversee and manage everything they could possibly need with the touch of a finger!
From seeing a significant growth in sales and the reduction of canceled orders down to the improvement of inventory turnover and the expedition of processing orders and managing operations from all retail platforms, omnichannels have only given businesses more flexibility to reach out with and build more sustainable relationships with their customers as well as easily integrate new strategies that they believe could further launch their business forward.
Searching for possible ways to attainably and easily grow your business? Let us at Omnirio help you out!
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